DOCBOOK: Newbie dealing with RPMs

[Josh Kuperman <josh at saratoga dot lib dot ny dot us>]

I apologize as this is really about using the Linux RPM. I couldn't
think of anyplace else where there would more likely be people who
knew the answer.

I installed sgml-common-0.1-6, howto-sgml-6.0-4, sgml-tools-1.0.9-2,
and docbook-3.0-12 using RPMs on a RedHat machine. I have been able to
use the linuxdoc DTDs, alright; except for the sgml2latex command had
a few problems. ( The LaTeX files generated failed to specify english
as the language for the babel package and the latex command could
never find the .sty files until copied them my home directory.) The
sgml2html I never was able to get any of the DocBook stuff to work. I
tried to download the latest version of the DocBook DTDs and install
those manually - probably a mistake.

Is there a "definitive" current locations to get RPM distributions of
DocBook and SGML related tools (jade, psgml for emacs) prefereable one
that would assume and find related directory in /usr/share/texmf and
/usr/share/emacs? Is there someone who can tell me where the RPMs put
all the stuff? Would I have better luck removing the packages and
sticking everything in /usr/local?

-- 
Josh Kuperman                       
josh@saratoga.lib.ny.us
Saratoga Springs Public Library